1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus, and more particularly, to an inkjet recording apparatus which is capable of inkjet printing of high quality by improving the solvent absorption rate by means of an absorbing body.
2. Description of the Related Art
In high-quality inkjet printing, if wrinkling (“called cockling”) of the paper occurs as a result of a deposited solvent permeating into the paper, then the print quality declines markedly. In response to this problem, there is a known method which evaporates (dries) the solvent by means of heating, but this method requires a large load of energy, and may lead to instability of the system (for example, liquid droplet ejection failures as a result of the ink drying in the nozzle sections).
In response to this, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-161610, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-271401 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-82428 disclose solvent removal methods based on contact-based absorption of the solvent by means of an absorbing body (below, this is called “solvent absorption”).
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-161610, solvent absorption is carried out by means of a porous body having a capillary portion, and by making the diameter of the pores of the porous body smaller than the diameter of the particles of the coloring material, the coloring material is prevented from entering inside the absorbing body and only the solvent is absorbed by the absorbing body.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-271401, solvent absorption is carried out by means of a porous body having a capillary portion, and by using an absorbing body having a collection rate (ratio of trapped particles) of 90% or greater when filtering particles having an average particle size of 5 μm, the coloring material is prevented from entering into the absorbing body and only the solvent is absorbed by the absorbing body.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-82428, a fiber material is used as an absorbing body, and by making the thickness of the fibers 0.01 to 100 dtex, then only the solvent is recovered, while retaining fiber strength.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-161610, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-271401 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-82428, the holes formed in the contact portion of the surface of the absorbing body are formed to have a small opening diameter so that the coloring material does not enter into the absorbing body; however, if this technique is applied to a case where a coloring material aggregate is formed by causing the ink to react with a treatment liquid so that the coloring material in the ink aggregates, then situations may arise where the coloring material aggregate becomes blocked in the holes of the absorbing material, and hence there is a possibility that the absorption rates of the treatment liquid and the ink solvent (the solvent absorption rate) may decline dramatically, causing marked deterioration of the print quality.